How to setup access control in SVN?

Question

I have set up a repository using SVN and uploaded projects. There are multiple users working on these projects. But, not everyone is working on all projects and require access. I want to setup permissions for each of the projects with users.

How do I achieve this?

Answer 1

The best way is to set up Apache and to set the access through it. Check the svn book for help. If you don't want to use Apache, you can also do minimalistic access control using svnserve.

Answer 2

You can use svn+ssh:, and then it's based on access control to the repository at the given location.

This is how I host a project group repository at my Uni, where I can't setup anything else. Just having a directory that the group owns, and running svn-admin (or whatever it was) in there means that I didn't need to do any configuration.

Answer 3

One gotcha which caught me out:

[repos:/path/to/dir/] # this won't work

but

[repos:/path/to/dir]  # this is right

You need to not include a trailing slash on the directory, or you'll see 403 for the OPTIONS request.

Answer 4

@Stephen Bailey

To complete your answer, you can also delegate the user rights to the project manager, through a plain text file in your repository.

To do that, you setup your SVN database with a default authz file containing the following.

###########################################################################
# The content of this file always precedes the content of the
# $REPOS/admin/acl_descriptions.txt file.
# It describes the immutable permissions on main folders.
###########################################################################
[groups]
svnadmins = xxx,yyy,....

[/]
@svnadmins = rw
* = r
[/admin]
@svnadmins = rw
@projadmins = r
* =

[/admin/acl_descriptions.txt]
@projadmins = rw

This default authz file authorize the SVN administrators to modify a plain visible text file within your SVN repository, called '/admin/acl_descriptions.txt', in which the SVN administrators or project managers will modify and register the users.

Then you setup a pre-commit hook which will detect if the revision is composed of that file (and only that file).

If it is, this hook scripts will validate the content of your plain text file and check if each line is compliant with the SVN right syntax.

Then a post-commit hook will update the \conf\authz file with the concatenation of:

• the TEMPLATE authz file presented above
• the plain text file /admin/acl_descriptions.txt

The first iteration is done by the SVN administrator, he adds:

[groups]
projadmins = zzzz

He commits his modification, and that updates the authz file.

Then the project manager 'zzzz' can add, remove or declare any group of users and any users he wants. He commits the file and the authz file is updated.

That way, the SVN administrator does not have to follow any and all users for all SVN repositories.

Answer 5

In your svn\repos\YourRepo\conf folder you will find two files, authz and passwd. These are the two you need to adjust.

In the passwd file you need to add some usernames and passwords. I assume you have already done this since you have people using it:

[users]
User1=password1
User2=password2

Then you want to assign permissions accordingly with the authz file:

Create the conceptual groups you want, and add people to it:

[groups]
allaccess = user1
someaccess = user2

Then choose what access they have from both the permissions and project level.

So let's give our "all access" guys all access from the root:

[/]
@allaccess = rw

But only give our "some access" guys read-only access to some lower level project:

[/someproject]
@someaccess = r

You will also find some simple documentation in the authz and passwd files.

Answer 6

Although I would suggest the Apache approach is better, SVN Serve works fine and is pretty straightforward.

Assuming your repository is called "my_repo", and it is stored in c:\svn_repos:

1. Create a file called "passwd" in "C:\svn_repos\my_repo\conf". This file should look like:

   [Users]
   username = password
   john = johns_password
   steve = steves_password
   

2. In c:\svn_repos\my_repo\conf\svnserve.conf set

   [general]
   password-db = passwd
   auth-access=read
   auth-access=write
   

This will force users to login to read or write to this repository.

Follow these steps for each repository, only including the appropriate users in the passwd file for each repository.